Fifty years ago, nine courageous African-American youth were denied access
to public education in Little Rock Arkansas by hateful mobs and the Arkansas
National Guard. The Little Rock Nine faced a gauntlet of intolerant parents
in their community, inflamed by local media. Such attitudes seem
unimaginable in twenty-first century America. Yet in Colorado, they
persist.

On February 7, Denver NBC affiliate KUSA-TV
criticized
and ridiculed the Douglas County School District for enrolling a third
grade girl who was born different than most children but dared to seek an
education in the same schools. Stories of gender variant children, whose
innate gender identities are incongruent with their assigned birth sex, have
been reported in recent national media with accuracy and compassion. In
2007, ABC “20/20,” CBS “Oprah Winfrey,” and MSNBC introduced families of
children and adults who transitioned their social gender roles to fit their
inner identities. These were real human beings who were forced to overcome
tremendous obstacles to live remarkably ordinary lives. However, KUSA-TV
reporter Nelson Garcia disregarded these accounts when he reduced this
child’s struggle to false stereotype, rumor and hysteria.

Of the harsh words faced by gender variant people, none is more hurtful than
maligning language, which disregards their experienced gender identities and
denies the affirmed gender roles of those who have transitioned full time.
Since 2000, the Associated Press Stylebook has advised journalists to
use respectful pronouns consistent with the way gender variant individuals
live publicly. Mr. Garcia violated these guidelines for a cruel, sensational
headline, “Boy Wants to Return to School as a Girl.” In truth, a young girl
simply wishes to be treated with the same dignity as all other girls.

The KUSA-TV report vilified gender variance and gender role nonconformity as
mental disorder. A local social worker reinforced these worn stereotypes
and implied without evidence that this family lacked competent medical and
mental health advice. No medical or mental health practitioners with
specialized expertise in this field were allowed to respond. Some factual
information from Mrs. Kim Pearson, of TransYouth Family Advocates, was later
added to text on the KUSA-TV web site. However, her remarks were completely
omitted from the broadcast. Mental disorder is defined by behaviors and
emotions that represent distress, impairment and dysfunction. Gender
variance, in contrast, is characterized by behaviors and emotions considered
ordinary and even exemplary for other people. In 2006, the American
Psychological Association stated, “Many transgender people do not experience
their transgender feelings and traits to be distressing or disabling, which
implies that being transgender does not constitute a mental disorder per
se.”

The KUSA-TV report disparaged an entire class of human beings, yet not one
gender variant representative was interviewed. Only one view from the
Highlands Ranch Community was presented: one parent with an agenda of
intolerance, fear and an ignorant reference to “someone wearing transgender
clothing.” (There is no such thing; transitioned youth wear clothing that is
ordinary and appropriate to their affirmed gender.) Accepting, welcoming
parents from Douglas County were excluded from the report. Mr. Garcia also
neglected to mention other public school districts across Colorado, where
students have transitioned with support of parents, classmates and teachers,
and without the intolerance and media circus that has been incited in
Douglas County.

The existence of gender variant people is not news. Gender transcendence
among Native American nations was honored for millennia before European
prejudice came to this continent. Evidence suggests that innate gender
identity in all people forms before birth and, like sexual orientation,
cannot be changed by coercion or so called “reparative therapies.” Two
distinguished mathematicians reported to the World Professional Association
of Transgender Heath Symposium last year that as many as 1/2500 Americans
will undergo a sex reassignment procedure in their lifetimes, and far more
will transition their social gender roles.

The willingness of public school officials to educate all children and treat
all students equally with dignity and respect is not news. Nothing less
should be expected from any public school. Tragically, the Douglas County
School District decision to provide an education to this special student and
treat her with basic human dignity was sensationalized as scandal by KUSA-TV,
just as the admission of students of color in Little Rock, Arkansas was
scandalized fifty years ago.

The real news in Colorado is the extraordinary hostile environment that
gender variant youth face in many communities. The KUSA-TV report neglected
to mention the brutal murder of a gender variant, Navajo two-spirit teen, F.
C. Martinez, near Cortez, Colorado in 2001. The Gay, Lesbian and Straight
Education Network reported that more than nearly one fifth of lesbian, gay,
bisexual and transgender students surveyed were physically assaulted due to
their sexual orientation and over a tenth were assaulted because of their
gender expression each year. Further inflaming hostility, KUSA-TV has shown
a callous disregard for the safety of these children in Colorado.

Fifty years from now, people of Douglas County and all of Colorado will
shake their heads in disbelief of the cruelty that was inflicted upon
courageous gender variant children who sought an education here in 2008. In
the meantime, your corporation owes this Highlands Ranch family an apology
and owes the public unbiased and factual journalism in the future.